Farmer jailed for ‘body in barrel’ murder in Barnsley

The court previously heard Dyson had been living in his car outside Wright’s cottage on Sheffield Road in Hoyland, often helping him with various jobs like cutting hedges, mending tractors and driving him to appointments.

Jurors heard Wright was a “weapons fanatic” and “a collector”, who owned a number of vintage firearms, old farm machinery and musical instruments.

Dyson’s ex-partner recalled how several months before his disappearance, Dyson had found a machine gun at Wright’s farm and kept it because it was “worth a lot of money”.

Prosecutors said Wright became “greatly angered” when he found out about the theft and killed him “with a shotgun immediately to hand”.

The last call from Dyson’s phone was made on 17 November 2019 and he was reported missing. Both Wright and Schwalbe, of Dike Hill, Low Harley, in Rotherham, were interviewed by police in the months after but denied knowing what had happened.

The pair’s trial heard how Wright had enlisted the help of his childhood friend Schwalbe to help him hide Dyson’s body.

In July 2025, a review of mobile phone data uncovered that Wright had called the owner of nearby Alderthwaite Farm in Hoyland three days after Dyson disappeared.

Farmer Ian Ollerenshaw told the court Wright had asked if he could store a livestock trailer on his land while he was “tidying up” his own farm, and noted the events of that day in his diary.

Ollerenshaw, who like Wright was a tenant of the Wentworth Estate, said the trailer was towed onto his land by a Fordson vintage tractor, but that he did not look inside it once it was parked.

Dyson’s body was later discovered in a concrete-filled barrel inside the padlocked trailer alongside Wright’s ID.